Western Bird Guide: Birds of the Rockies and West to the Pacific

by Charles K. Reed

CLARKE NUTCRACKER,

491. Nucifraga columbiana. 12 inches.

Found in the mountains of western North America, from Mexico to Alaska. In habits they much resemble the Crow or some of the Jays. Their food consisting largely of seeds from the pine cones, insects of many varieties, larvæ and berries. They seem to prefer the tops of the higher mountain ranges, coming down into the valleys for their supply of food. Their nesting sites are well up in the mountains, where they build their nests in the coniferous trees, of twigs, weeds, strips of bark and plant fibers, making a deep cup-shaped nest in which they lay from three to five greenish gray eggs, spotted over the whole surface with brown and lavender (1.30 × .90).